me356: Celani Ni Wire replication

Quote from Thomas Clarke

The LENR hypothesis is that:
(1) there is some way to increase nuclear reaction cross-sections enormously (10s of OOM) above what is expected at a given energy.
(2) coupled with this there is some way in which the normal high energy nuclear reaction products are turned (almost all) into thousands of much lower energy particles.

As you'll no doubt appreciate, there's not one LENR conjecture, as LENR is a catch-all that encompasses a range of odd experimental anomalies, for which a unifying principle is elusive. Under this umbrella there are certain families of observations. For example there's the so-called "Fleischmann and Pons heat effect," which is something like this:

• In a Fleischmann and Pons electrolytic cell with a palladium cathode and D2O,
• sometimes excess heat is reported significantly above what could be explained by chemical reactions,
• and excess heat has been correlated with helium.

If it is true that helium is created in the Fleischmann and Pons heat effect, there must be a nuclear mechanism of some kind, in contrast to a chemical or supra-chemical one. What mechanism is proposed may not be recognizable to people familiar with so-called "hot fusion" processes. Clearly people will differ on how seriously they take the reports on the Fleischmann and Pons heat effect. I personally take them seriously.

There are other anomalies, which might or might not overlap with the Fleischmann and Pons heat effect (which is in PdD), such as the "anomalous heat effect," which just looks at excess heat and doesn't specify the material or type of system. And there are a number of kinds of LENR experiments where the focus is on observations that are hard to explain in terms other than nuclear ones, such as small amounts of neutrons, transmutations, and so on, but don't necessarily involve anomalous heat.

Only in the context of a specific LENR theory or family of theories would we find the suggestions that "there is some way to increase nuclear reaction cross-sections enormously (10s of OOM) above what is expected at a given energy" and "this there is some way in which the normal high energy nuclear reaction products are turned (almost all) into thousands of much lower energy particles." Admittedly, these things might often be suggested, but as suggestions they are not universal or even possibly predominant. There are, for example, the so-called "deep Dirac level" family of theories which suggest that electrons can relax to orbitals below the ground state, giving off significant energy in the process. This family of LENR conjectures might be considered a supra-chemical one, and they address themselves almost solely to the anomalous heat effect.

My own preferred lead for understanding some LENR experiments, for example, involving induced alpha and beta decay and fission, along with electron capture, says nothing about cross sections or fractionating a result across thousands of particles (except indirectly, through stopping).

Dan21 wrote:

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If you try to achieve fusion by thermally overcoming the coulomb barrier, you are doing hot fusion. Stars such as Sol do this with P-P fusion and heavier stars do the C-N-O reaction.

I should think everyone agrees with this.

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If you are working with an apparatus within the solid or liquid state and haven't vaporized the apparatus, you are doing cold fusion.

But then 50 keV ions (accelerated through a potential difference) incident on deuterated or tritiated metals (in the solid state) would constitute cold fusion, in which case everyone would have to agree that cold fusion is a real phenomenon, since such devices can be purchased commercially for use as neutron generators. And this has been done since Cockroft and Walton built their first high voltage power supplies in the 1930s. The energy to overcome the barrier is not thermal energy in this case.

Likewise, pyroelectric fusion accelerates deuterium ions through high electric fields within pyroelectric crystals to cause fusion. Again, the ions are given high energy, but not by thermal means. This phenomenon is also well established, but is not considered by most to be cold fusion.

The difficulty with using electrical power to accelerate ions (whether it's in pyroelectric crystal or not) is that fusion is a relatively rare outcome, and so the power from fusion is never enough to generate the power to do the accelerating.

Muon catalyzed fusion gets around the Coulomb barrier by screening, and was originally called cold fusion, but the term for this phenomenon was dropped after P&F to avoid confusion. Muons aren't free either, and in spite of considerable effort, and Star Scientific notwithstanding, the energy from muon catalyzed fusion is not enough to generate the necessary muons.

Since the P&F phenomenon is not even generally accepted as real, and even among those who consider it real, is not understood, it's impossible to give it definition based on fundamental processes. The best one can do is say cold fusion is a process in which nuclear reactions are induced in otherwise stable metal hydrides by application of diffuse energy (heat, pressure, sonic, electrical).

I would add that the nuclear reactions produce measurable heat, since that's the way the phenomenon was introduced. But then measurement of radioactive products at levels a million or a billion times below those necessary to produce heat would not represent or validate "cold fusion" as such.

The presumption is usually that the process can be made self-sustaining, or it's impact would not be significantly greater than that of heat pumps. And certainly many of the claims of output heat exceeding the input manyfold should enable a self-sustaining process. On the other hand, in many of the claims, particularly those in the refereed literature, the heat generated by fusion is only a small fraction of the input power (COP only slightly greater than unity), in which case, self-sustained fusion is not obvious. Here, the implicit claim is usually that the reaction can be scaled up to the point where ignition is possible.

The use of 15 to 100 keV x-rays, like the acceleration of ions through a large potential difference, produces fusion exactly in accordance with expectations based on the *focused* energy imparted to individual nuclei. These processes don't have a hope (at present) or recovering the energy needed to make the x-rays or accelerate the ions, or of producing measurable heat. They don't validate cold fusion claims, nor point to a direction of power production. It's a fantasy to suggest it represents cold fusion.

I would point out that in spite of the incredibly low rate of fusion observed, the characterization of the radiation to identify the specific reaction is completely unequivocal, in stark contrast to every claim of radiation from a P&F type cold fusion experiment in history.

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There are, for example, the so-called "deep Dirac level" family of theories which suggest that electrons can relax to orbitals below the ground state, giving off significant energy in the process. This family of LENR conjectures might be considered a supra-chemical one, and they address themselves almost solely to the anomalous heat effect.

Well, such ideas are far up in cuckoosphere. Notwithstanding that, they are not nuclear, and therefore not LENR.

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My own preferred lead for understanding some LENR experiments, for example, involving induced alpha and beta decay and fission, along with electron capture, says nothing about cross sections or fractionating a result across thousands of particles (except indirectly, through stopping).

My point (2) comes from the corpus of observations which characterise LENR. There is no agreed hypothesis, nor any successful predictive hypothesis, so the best definition I can get for LENR is based on a nuclear interpretation of a set of observational claims. They show (2) as well as (1).

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The use of 15 to 100 keV x-rays, like the acceleration of ions through a large potential difference, produces fusion exactly in accordance with expectations based on the *focused* energy imparted to individual nuclei. These processes don't have a hope (at present) or recovering the energy needed to make the x-rays or accelerate the ions, or of producing measurable heat. They don't validate cold fusion claims, nor point to a direction of power production. It's a fantasy to suggest it represents cold fusion.

There have been suggestions that useful fusion power could come from accelerator initiated fusion, laser fusion, probably (I don't know) e-m initiated fusion as here but obviously with different crystals.

These are fundamantally different from LENR. Why? Because they all have a clear understood mechanism, supported by theory and definitive experiment. Why don't these methods work? Engineering. The pay-off is just not enough to provide the stimulus energy.

There is nothing (directly) in Physics that says one of these methods might not in some specific setup work for real fusion power. It looks unlikely, because there have been many attempts, and the numbers don't add up. Unlike LENR, these mechanisms can all be measured (as well as predicted from theory) and no-one claims they are viable when small amounts of fusion occur.

Quote from Thomas Clarke

Well, such ideas [deep Dirac levels] are far up in cuckoosphere.

I agree that they're implausible, although I hear they go back to a proposal from Dirac.

Quote from Thomas Clarke

My point (2) comes from the corpus of observations which characterise LENR. There is no agreed hypothesis, nor any successful predictive hypothesis, so the best definition I can get for LENR is based on a nuclear interpretation of a set of observational claims. They show (2) as well as (1).

My point about (2) is that it's not something that's generally agreed upon. Hence if you query it, you're querying your own attempted generalization. It's probably a thankless task to come up a single LENR hypothesis to challenge, especially if we're trying to be descriptive about what people have proposed at different times to explain it (for which there is no single "it"), rather than normative, trying to say what LENR should be, as Joshua has done above. It would be more precise to challenge specific experimental anomalies (the Fleischmann and Pons effect, the anomalous heat effect, transmutations, etc.), or specific conjectures or families of conjecture (Hagelstein's, Ed Storms's, etc.). In practice the word "LENR" is a catch-all and is not precise, in the same way that "cold fusion" is not precise, but people still use it without implying that fusion is what's going on. There's the word "nuclear" in LENR, but people working in the field don't even all agree that there is a nuclear effect.

Quote from me356

I am just absolutely certain that there is excess heat.

Until data and experimental information are posted, nobody else can be certain.

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My neutron detector pointed me the source of the radiation and it was clearly direction of the reactor, but still I can't be certain.
I didn't tried to add lithium yet there, but if neutrons are present, then excess heat might be significantly boosted along with other radiation.

http://newenergytimes.com/v2/l…aA-NeutronEmissionNiH.pdf

Piantelli, Focardi and others did report neutron emission from a Ni-H cell in one of their older papers. In the conclusions their hypothesis was that the neutron flux correlated with the rate of increase of excess heat rather than excess heat itself.

Preparation for the following experiments are nearly finished.
Vacuum pump (2 Pascal ultimate pressure), 99.999% purity H2, NaI(Tl) 2x2" scintillation probe, very sensitive soft beta, gamma pancake Si-14B detector and BTI neutron detector are ready.
Hopefully tommorow we will get some results

In reading your posts in this and the MFMP forum I have a fairly good idea on how you are replicating Celani's experiment. The only question I have is about pre-treatment of the wire. In his patents and later papers Celani goes into considerable details on the surface treatment which includes silica sol and metal salts. Do you do anything to the wire surface before exposing it to H2? I have pre-treated Ni 200 wire via joule heating in air to ~1000C and subsequent heating to ~500C in an H2 atmosphere. The dark grey oxide was reduced leaving a silvery surface, but I was unable to detect excess heat with an airflow calorimeter with a resolution of <1 watt.

What appeared to be LENR caused radiation was ultimately traced to Rn decay progeny that adhered to dust particles. Various null tests confirmed a 1:1 correlation to the fan moving air (and dust) into the calorimeter and detection of radiation. So I have not observed an unambiguous signature of and ionizing radiation in Celani-type experiments.

BTW, the resistivity vs. temperature for Ni is complex: there is not a good linear or even quadratic fit over the 0-700C range.

My wire was not oxidized nearly at all - it was already shining (silvery) from the beginning.
I have treated it with hydrogen always. At the beginning (first experiments) it was only LiAlH4 powder that allowed to achieve COP of 1.6. I had no equipment as today.
Now I do not use any powders. Only H2 and vacuum pump. Vacuum pump can pump all the impurities out.
After treating the nickel is shining even more and after repated hydrogenation it is able to change the resistance even by 40% up and down in a few seconds.
This mean that hydrogen loading ratio is quite fast and it has great impact on the lattice.

Dear Prof. Celani,

thank you very much for your input! Really appreciated!

I have already learned a lot from your papers (and MFMP)! For sure I have to study more from your work.

My personal theory is that producing atomic hydrogen more effectively is key to achieve higher COP.
Atomic hydrogen that was created before can then enter a transition material directly without too much "effort".
When transition material is then temporarily stressed it can yield excess energy, in very simple words.
If you can do this very often, very fast and without material destruction, the highest COP is achieved.

If rates of atomic hydrogen production vs recombination back to H2 are correct it will produce additional heat and H2 can be recycled without a loss.

But there are so many things to try, that one can spend whole life to understand the process.

Today I was able to get excess heat again with COP near 2, then reactor failed due to a bad sealing that started to melt. Reactor was much bigger than previous time thus produced energy was in range of 1kW.
This time I was able to trigger excess heat from 350°C external, then temperature increased to ~700°C external just in 4 seconds. Internal temperature was higher.

What is very interesting that I have verified that lithium can be placed nearly anywhere in the fuel chamber (not in contact with nickel) and still it is working and affects whole fuel batch.
This is what I have observed more times.

What is also interesting that excess heat was not coming from part of the reactor that was hottest previously. Rather areas that were more clean from oxides were glowing significantly more.
In simple words - few areas of the fuel were hotter (100°C difference) than area that logically should be more hot due to joule heating hot spot.
So the excess heat was not dispersed uniformly along the fuel.

Today I think that sort of SSM was achieved, altough lasting just a few seconds. During this period power was zero yet temperature was rather constant - then suddenly decreased because of reactor failure.

I was testing also a new radiation detector Si-14B and I must admit that beta radiation was elevated by 2-3 times. Development was rather not dependent on the excess heat production, but I have to investigate it more.

Quote from me356

What is very interesting that I have verified that lithium can be placed nearly anywhere in the fuel chamber (not in contact with nickel) and still it is working and affects whole fuel batch.
This is what I have observed more times.

Just an Idea:
According to Mills GUT (page 230) Li & (Fe³⁺ or Fe⁴⁺) is a good catalytic system to produce "neutron like" Hydrino states. If this happens on the containment surface this easily explains why they end up in the target material.

Would be interesting to know!

I think me356 has hit the jackpot. The only thing he needs is a heat exrtraction system that can adjust the heat extraction fluid in proportion to the temperature of the cell, to ensure that the temperature stays within 10 degrees of the point where the initial radiation was measured.
Once you do that, we have a new world.

Supercool me! You nail it. I look forward to live demonstrations over the net and/or IRL. Maybe Mats Lewan can organize something with you?

I have to say that there are more things that are counter intuitive.
Conditions that are normally giving significantly reduced temperature are good for triggering the excess heat. So you will immediately know when triggering failed or was successfull.

Reactor that was running today was made of Al2O3, just caps were stainless steel.
I have to find a better solution to prevent from these failures so it will work for a long time.

If you are getting clear excess heat while input power is zero and reactor is still strongly glowing I think that the result is clear.
Definitively I am very satisfied altough a lot of work must be done.

I wanted to capture a video but it was not possible since burned sealing was really strongly smelling. So staying there was not good for many reasons.

Shiv Singh: I have finished a heat extraction system that can be already connected to a water grid.
This system can be used with nearly any reactor design with good efficiency.

Me356, this will sound paranoid, but if you have what you indicate, you should tell the world all the details of replication now, before something either happens to you or you are blackmailed/extorted by competing $trillion interests.